Where are the trails we were promised?
Why a complete Three Rivers Heritage Trail will take decades
We’re the City of Rivers, not just Bridges. We have the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, beautiful rivers worth walking or biking — where we have trails. I know this because I used to be an avid cyclist (before children, the pandemic and writing projects took over my life), and I often wore out my tires on the many trails that surround our city.
The Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail system that begins in Cumberland, Md., culminates in Pittsburgh, with the last 19 miles along the Monongahela, offering breathtaking vistas of the river, as well as its cliffs and many bridges, oftentimes through equally-as-scenic foliage before and after rural becomes urban.
Where one trail ends, a biker or hiker can quickly maneuver through bridges and other pathways of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail to get to the confluence of The Point, or across to the North Shore, where it’s possible to bike three short miles up theOhio to the trail’s end by Western Penitentiary or along the Allegheny forabout four miles to Millvale.
After that, trail-users wanting to go up the river further have to share the road with cars and climb steep hills. But it doesn’t have to be this way — at least not along the Allegheny.
The trails as yet unbuilt
Foryears, various nonprofits and politicians have been calling for the development of a rails-to-trails system, turning rail lines into usable trails, that will connect Millvale to Aspinwall and eventually 20-some miles to Freeport, which already hosts a patchwork trail system that connectsto Erie.
Back in 2017, the cities of Etna and Sharpsburg announced planned expansions to the river trail. Feasibility studies were done. Gorgeously detailed illustrations were commissioned. Years passed. Economic development visionaries held fundraisers. Local newspapers and alt weeklies touted the various benefits the trail system would bring.
Trails along our riverside would bring in more tourists, allow for boutique hotels to pop up in our riverside townships and boroughs, encourage restaurants and local businesses to thrive. Look at Millvale, many offered, and see how the trail kickstarted a little boom in what was previously a dying municipality.
There was a little momentum at first. Etna built a small, but lovely, 1.8-acre riverside park along 780feet of the riverside that begins under a bridge and just ends as it runs into the railroad. It is cute, and I often like to walk there from my office nearby to sit on a bench and read, but without connections to Shaler Township or Sharpsburg, it’s simply a sidewalk to nowhere.
But at least Etna has done something. Outside of announcing new possible lines, including the Brilliant line that would connect the East End of Pittsburgh to Aspinwall and Sharpsburg, Allegheny County and its riversides have little to show for all the noise.
Needed noise
But the noise is important. “I know it can be frustrating,” an Allegheny County employee involved in the process said in an interview, “but announcing these projects, long before they are even started, allows us to put public pressure on the many stakeholders that need to be cleared for the trails to exist.”
Kelsey Ripper, executive director of Friends of the Riverfront, points out that progress is slow by design. “Remember, the GAP took decades,” she said in an interview. “There’s been a lot of progress farther up the river, Harmar through Springdale, but it’s not necessarily linear.”
When I asked if the Three Rivers Heritage Trail system will be completed in a decade or two, she said, “I think that’s conceivable. Ten years would be amazing, but more is also likely.”
As Ripper points out, part of the problem is that it’s taken a long time to purchase the necessary land or easements from the railroad companies, particularly Norfolk Southern (who one would think would be interested in making good with Western Pennsylvania after their high-profile derailments).
There are also areas where proximity to functional and active railroads present danger. “Safety matters most,” Ripper said. Where railroads cannot be moved, bridges or pathways extending into the rivers are possible, but at tremendous expense.
The negotiations will take time, as will construction. And because of that, it will be decades before any of the announced trails come to be.
Integrated rivers and lives
There’s something wonderful about getting to promenade or exercise near water. Walking the Schuylkill is lovely in Philadelphia, as is the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Here in Pittsburgh, our Downtown and North Shore neighborhoods have gradually beautified the riversides to great effect. On a quick walk along the shore earlier this week, I found at least a dozen people taking pictures of themselves along the water— even in the rain.
It’s important that all our rivers be better integrated into our lives. A complete Three Rivers Heritage Trail would be the beginning — a way to connect the entire region. Etna Riverfront Park deserves a trail that goes somewhere. We all do.